


Recursion

by ansith



Category: Terminator - All Media Types, Terminator Genisys (2015), The Terminator (1984)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Implied/Referenced Incest, Incest, Multi, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7862308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ansith/pseuds/ansith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Repeatedly altering the past and future is not without consequences. </p>
<p>Even fate can’t remain unchanged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recursion

Sarah Connor can count on one hand the number of days she gets to have with her soulmate.

She’s been looking forward to finding him for so long, always having a romantic heart, and this turn of events is like a knife in her back. Even so, she wouldn’t change a thing; Kyle Reese is the bravest man she’s ever met and she’s happy she got the time she did, wouldn’t trade it for years with another man.

And she has a son; a reminder of their short time. A man who will grow up to be a hero, just like his father, and she’s proud. She’ll raise him right, make sure he’s prepared, and tell him to watch out for his father in the future, glad they’ll at least get to be brothers-in-arms, friends, if not traditional father and son.

She traces the grey letters of his name on her wrist in the light of early mornings and feels sadness knowing that someday, decades in the future, he’ll do the same with hers.

*

John Connor finds his soulmark a comfort. There was a time when he didn’t, when his mother’s ramblings about his pre-destined role as a leader of humanity’s remnants made this real world reminder of fate make him squirm but as time wears on, as she’s proven right, as the future gets darker and bleaker…

It’s a sign of hope. Somewhere in the world there is a girl named Kate and she has to be strong and smart if she’s made it this long, her name still stark black and alive on his wrist. Out there, waiting for him, there’s something good. A ray of light. Someone who will see him and love him for who he really is.

He looks at his soulmark in the dark of night and he feels like maybe things will turn out okay.

*

Kyle Reese gets a sense of finality whenever he sees the words ‘Sarah Connor’ spelled out on his skin.

He joins the resistance, seeks out John Connor and John tells him about her, and as impossible as it is, Sarah Connor being long dead (and the words on his wrist are a light grey, dead, _dead_ ), he knows nothing in this world is set in stone. He looks at the picture of John’s mother and he _knows_. He knows. Somehow, he’s going to meet her. He's going to meet her, and given their present circumstances, it isn't going to end well.

But it'll be worth it. She’s beautiful and she was so strong and John wouldn’t be who he is if not for her. He’s so excited to one day get to see her, touch her, that he doesn’t care if they don't get their own happy ending.

And he’s sure they won’t. They can’t. But when word comes of what the machines are planning, he volunteers immediately to go back in time and protect her. To ensure John still exists, to ensure the future of humanity.

But mostly, so he can meet Sarah. His Sarah. Maybe somehow things will change. Maybe he’ll get to spend years with her. Maybe he won’t. But no matter what, he’ll get to be with her, and that’s enough.

*

Sarah is nine when her parents die and her childhood ends. She is no longer happy-go-lucky; no longer enjoys thinking about romance and imagining her soulmate. Her life is preparation and fighting and engineering, readying to save the world from a future that crushes her under its weight just to think about it.

When she reaches her eighteenth birthday and no soulmark appears she’s surprised. Pops has always made such a big deal of her fated romance with Kyle Reese, soulmates separated by time.

But it makes her smile. She smiles, so full of hope and joy, more than she’s been able to muster in years.

There’s still free will. There’s still room for her to be her. To make her own choices. She doesn’t know what’s changed, if her being raised by Pops and readied for battle is what did it or if some other alteration has made her so different she and Kyle Reese no longer match, but she’s thankful.

Sarah Connor has no soulmate and she feels a burn of happiness whenever she thinks about it. She’s free.

*

John is seventeen when his mother dies so it makes sense that she never knew anything about his soulmate. She had barely any time with her own, not enough to get into that kind of minutia when other things were much more important.

He knows he’s going to meet his father at some point; his mom had told him he’ll save him in a fight with the machines sometime after Kyle's soulmark has come in, Sarah Connor spelled out in light grey lines. It’s something that will bring them together, the confusion over how that can be (he hates knowing ahead of time that he’s going to have to lie to this man, this man who saved his mother, just so he can continue to exist), and then he’s going to have to send Kyle to his death. It feels wrong, but the fate of the human race depends on it.

He turns eighteen and after the first few days of shocked staring he never looks at his soulmark again.

There has to have been a mistake. Something must have gone wrong. _It can’t be right_.

He meets Kyle Reese when he saves him as a boy of twelve, wrist blank, Sarah Connor not yet written there. This isn’t how things are supposed to go and he knows for certain now that something has happened, that time has been altered and things aren’t the same. He keeps his distance from Kyle, trying to minimize any changes, but as Kyle gets older, rises through the ranks of the resistance, a sharp and fantastic fighter, he becomes harder and harder to ignore.

Kyle is recommended to John’s own unit and he can’t say no to such a talented soldier.

They hit it off, just like they were always supposed to. Kyle is smart and funny and doesn’t look at him like he’s a savior or a hero; he just looks at him like he’s _John_.

Kyle asks him one day why he isn’t with his soulmate; John half lies, says there’s no time, not during a war. That maybe, afterwards, if he and his soulmate are both still alive, they’ll be able to be together.

Kyle looks hopeful and John knows why and he hates it. He hates himself. He hates what he has to do.

A year later, when Kyle is twenty-one, John is helping him change his bandages in the aftermath of a close call. Kyle’s wrist covering slips and John sees most of the soulmark scrawled there and he feels sick.

*

Kyle sits next to the ruins of the Cyberdyne building and he waits.

He hates that John lied to him. He hates how he had to find out, Sarah full of confused disgust when she sees his soulmark before they jump forward to 2017.

But most of all he hates John being gone. He hates that they were turned against each other, had to fight each other.

But his soulmark is still black. John is still alive, somehow, particles scattered and Kyle likes to think they’re just taking their time rebuilding.

He’ll be here when John’s done. He’ll be here, and without Skynet hanging over them he hopes things will be different. He rubs at his wrist, at the letters spelling out _John Connor_ , and he waits.

**Author's Note:**

> In case it isn't obvious, the first three sections are meant to be from the points of view of the original Sarah, John and Kyle from The Terminator and perhaps Terminator 2, Salvation, 3, what have you, while the last three sections are from the Sarah, John and Kyle of Genisys.


End file.
